Filing Fees....Method of Payment....Help!!

[LostinPrague 1]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post and I imagine some of you have already asked this question, but I have yet to find the answer that I need. Here is Our situation:

I am a U.S citizen, my husband is a Lithuanian citizen and we actually live in the Czech Republic. We have been married for nearly 2 1/2 years and are now planning to move back to my hometown.

We are about to file the I-130 in the next several days most of our paper work is complete and evidence ready what we don't know and are struggling to find out is how do we pay when we are abroad!? I am sure we are not the first and we are definitely not the last, but USCIS (http://www.uscis.gov/forms/paying-immigration-fees)%C2'> say to contact your local embassy or consulate however Embassies/ consulates no longer get involved in the Green card process anymore so they will not answer our question and I called USCIS and of course whoever I spoke to had no idea either.

We were told we can get an "international draft" of course in US currency, what I want to know is if we do this are we able to us a local bank as we do not have a US based bank in the Czech Republic, and what do we do to do this, a routing number or any bank information? I know if you write a check it is written to U.S Homeland Security, is this the same for a draft?

Or if you are living abroad and have filed how did you pay? Any advice will be helpful!

Thanks

[tabletalk 1]

Did you happen to get an answer to this question? I am in the same boat here in Canada.

[LostinPrague 1]

Tharnett- in the end we sent our money via paypal to my parents, they took out a cashier's check and mailed it to us. We were getting different answers from everyone, no one new for sure and it didn't take all that long to do it this way. I suggest if you have a friend or family member to ask if they wouldn't mind to do it. We found out that it has to come from an American based bank or financial institute. It's a pain but it seems to be the only way.

it just sucks that no one is very sure or helpful in this area and you would think that they want their money so why can't they tell you one way or the other.

Our I-130 has been approved so if you need help pr have any other questions I am happy to help

[tabletalk 1]

Thank-you for the offer to help,

I will follow up with my wife and see what our options are.

[tabletalk 1]

We were able to get some clarity around filing fees,

as it turns out our bank (CIBC) here in Canada uses Chase Bank in the USA as an intermediary for any USD money orders (bank drafts). Our process was as simple as going into our bank and asking for a $600 (USD) money order.

We filed our paperwork on January 12th and received a confirmation from USCIS today that our payment was successfully processed and that our documentation was now at our local office for processing.

Woohoo!